Reading is writing #2- Who killed Mrs. Marshal?

Review #2 “Who killed Mrs. Marshal?”
SPOILER WARNING! If I bring up a specific scene of the story I have either did so to explain my reasoning of a certain matter, or it was by a complete accident.

Hello once again! Today I will be giving my thoughts on “Evil under the sun” by Agatha Christie! Now then, the title, it’s not exactly what you think. There is no magic in this book, they mention it, but it doesn’t really play a role here. When I first looked at this name I thought, “Did Christie actually do fiction?” This book, however, has more of a reality play to it. She does, actually explain her name choice somewhere in the beginning of her book. Okay, let me illuminate here for you, this book is about finding the murderer of Mrs. Marshal. Before she dies, though, the detective sees her on the beach and mentions that there is evil everywhere you go, or there is “Evil under the sun”. As a Christian, I do believe that there is evil in the world wherever I go, so I can look at this as a means of only one of the many tragedies that happen every day. Alright then, I shall proceed with this story!

Now we go into a little bit of the author’s reputation. Christie is best known for her mystery novels, like this one, and has a whole collection dedicated to this specific genre. I actually heard about her from my mom when I was little. I think she actually has the whole mystery collection in this one book shelf we have downstairs! I say this because there is so much of them by Christie! This is actually the first novel from this writer that I have ever read, and I only started to do so because I thought I would need it as a source for my English class. Either way, I’m glad that I finally got to put one of these stories into use since they’ve just been sitting in that glass-door-closed book case for over ten years! I think I started reading this particular book either during February, or January of 2015, like I said, I thought it would be good literature to mention in my research paper. I decided it would be best used for fun, though, so she wasn’t mentioned… Sadness… Moving onwards, I believe I finished reading “Evil under the sun,” on April 21st, so about four months is my reading length. I should be ashamed of that because it’s not a very large book, but I had school work and other things, so you can’t really blame me too much there.

Time for the nitty-gritty! How did the plot speak to me? As I have mentioned a bit earlier, there’s some people who go out on vacation to an island (I forgot the name of the tourist area) and meet each other. Everyone becomes acquainted with each other and spend some time together until… Mrs. Marshal is found dead! Who killed her, and why? Detective Colgate and Pirot search for clues to solve the mystery, and bring the mad-man to justice! Yep, that’s it basically. I sort of found this a stereotype of these kind of novels, but then again, Christie wrote this back in the 1900’s so I can’t really blame her, she’s dead anyways. It was probably considered “hip” and “fresh” during her time, so I can’t bog her about it too much, I don’t want her haunting me anyway. I can say, however, that she did remain in contact with her main plot, she kept the readers in the point of view with Colgate and Pirot’s. She kept me wondering who killed the hated woman and try to bring all of these clues together. Who does this pipe belong to? Who’s been hiding drugs? Who doesn’t have an efficient alibi? Christie did also bring up an interesting clue by Colgate that brought him to the real culprit and bring them under cuffs, I found that interesting.
On to the characters, they actually were based heavily on stereotypes, so I’ll try to differentiate them as much as I can. With mystery novels, it’s obvious that the detective will most likely be the protagonist, but then who’s the antagonist? Who is killing the other characters one by one? That’s why we walk with the detectives, to find the nasty people. I’ll start with Colgate the protagonist, actually, all I could get out of him was a sense of Sherlock Holmes, same with Pirot as Watson… Well then, I’ll just go onto Linda Marshal, the step daughter of the victim. She’s described as a simple, and not so bright, young lady who enjoys the quiet. I don’t think she’s completely stupid like a blonde (I’m one, so don’t fret), but she did do some stuff that’s just out of the ordinary. She really was sad when her step-mother was murdered and actually tried to commit suicide because she was convinced that she was to blame by a voodoo doll! Don’t you worry, though, dear Linda lives in the end. Then there’s the annoying d-bag Mr. Blatt! I don’t think he was mentioned much in the book, but towards the end he did something that I do not approve of. I get that he wanted EVERYONE to join the picnic, but the way Christie wrote it, he just sounded rude! I swear, if he dragged me into a car like he did with Miss Redfern, I would have looked at him with a death-glare and said in a demonic voice, “Don’t you ever touch me again!” Men, don’t ever drag a woman into a car without her content, that now at days, is considered molest and kid-napping, in other words, illegal… Seriously though, Mr. Blatt is just plain rude! There were a lot of characters that I think Christie put too much time into developing, and then ruins them by giving them barely any appearances, like the Gardners for instance, I think there only job was to play tennis with Miss Redfern so she could have an efficient alibi. I get it, all of these characters were made for each individual clue so that the two detectives could solve this case, and that’s fine, I’m okay with that. At least she didn’t make any extremely annoying people who do nothing, or make the story repeat itself over and over again (Koontz, I’m talking about you)!      

Continuing on with my review, I think Christie did a swell job with the details of the plot. She would rightly place certain clues to remind the reader what is a possible conclusion and a down-right impossibility, and in a way that didn’t piss me off. She kept me wondering about who killed this freaking b*tch and why. I have to say, though, the whole plot of how exactly the killer(s) did kill Mrs. Marshal, I think it was genius! Then in the finish line, I think it had a touch of beautiful there because Mr. Marshal and Miss Redfern finally get together, and Linda lives to be with the step-mother that she likes, so a happy ending there! I loved the ending because it all came together smoothly, even though someone was still dead! I also think that Christie did well with describing the scenes and situations, but not overly-done at the same time. I don’t know why, but every time I placed myself with the characters, I would come up with a picture of a movie made back in the 70’s. Maybe it’s because I know it’s a really old book? I shouldn’t let that stop me from possibly re-mastering this into a movie when I become a scriptwriter.

What did I like about this book? Well… I guess the whole idea of it, getting to read about where the traditions of mysteries came from. I like Redfern, that’s for sure, and Linda as well. Those are all of the highlights I can think of right now… What did I hate about this book though? I’d have to say, the fact that I can’t remember much of the details! That’s probably because of all the homework I’ve been doing, but I wish that Christie could have done something more so that it would be another simple mystery novel. I also wish that she could have given some of the characters more time to show themselves and give them more purpose. That’s it really.

I am finally coming to an end with this review! I actually do plan to read some more of her work, I don’t know what order she published any of the books, but I’m still curious as to study her style more. I want to know why my mom loved her books so much to the point that she bought a whole collection of Agatha Christie! I’d hate to see those books go to waste. Would I read this again?... Yes actually, maybe three years from now, when I don’t remember much of this book, I would like to read it again. I enjoyed it as a means for passing time, I’m not hyped about it, but I still like it.

We have finally reached the sneak-peak! What will I be reviewing next!? It’s about an American-Indian, the book is named after an island, and this young woman has to live on her abandoned homeland for quite some time! Will she survive!? That’s it for that! I think I will actually finish this next week if I’m not lazy, I’ve already read a majority of the book and it’s not very long. If you made it this far with my post, thank you so very much! Have a wonderful and blessed day!